thrillseeker4552

"He was sunshine, I was midnight rain. He wanted it comfortable, I wanted that pain. He wanted a bride, I was making my own name, chasing that fame. He stayed the same. All of me changed like midnight rain." From Taylor Swift's "Midnight Rain" on her new album Midnights. Any other major Swifties out there?

West Coaster at Pacific Park in Santa Monica. I grew up in SoCal and finally rode the coaster for the first time last Saturday. Glad to see they let you go around twice, it makes it feel more worth the money!

I moved to FL in June 2021 and Falcon's Fury ran pretty consistently from then until April of this year when it suddenly shut, and aside from a brief reopening sometime in the summer, has been shut since.

Attempted to visit Knott's today. I have never seen it so busy in my life. We couldn't even get in the park. Beach Blvd was completely bumper to bumper, all lots full, the security line backed up past the Marketplace and more. After taking 1 hour just to make our way down Beach Blvd and crossing under GhostRider, we ended up just leaving. Queue-Times shows many wait times at 3 hours. And of course, Xcel being down doesn't help. I know it's the busiest week of the year, but this time last year I was at least able to get IN the park. Maybe it's because today is the observed Christmas holiday so many people are still not at work yet. But it was just insane. The park just draws so many damn people for its size. Not just the capacity of the coasters, but the parking, security, food lines (based on last year's visit around this time), rides, everything is undersized. I wonder how much longer until they build a parking garage, open up some parking/warehouse space, and expand the park with some higher capacity rides, restaurants, and more. It's just wild.

Very odd POV with the effects and auto-smoothing/gyroscope, but nonetheless the coaster looks awesome. Both of those "flat" rolls are giving me mosasaurus roll vibes - they looks much flatter than typical RMC zero G rolls. Can't wait to drive up there and ride it this spring.

Glad to see them doing well. It's amazing what happens when you actually open your rides! lol Agreed about Fury needing 2 trains, at least through Winterfest. After the new year, for weekends until March I'm sure one train ops is less of a problem. But better open than closed! EDIT: Also, now that the park is year-round, I wonder if they would consider a 4th train for Fury to cycle through maintenance. Knott's bought a third for Silver Bullet so it could have 2 trains 99% of the year. Maybe not likely but something to think about if they're serious about expanding and continuing year round.

Can Jeffrey please run the entire Six Flags chain? That would be awesome. All looks like great stuff for SFFT. I went in 2019 and 2021 and absolutely loved both visits and already wanna go back again.

Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit last Sunday

I went on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (11/23) and I would say about half of the coasters were closed. The list of closed rides included Riddler, Scream, Superman, Wonder Woman for about half the day, Goliath, Full Throttle, Viper about half the day, and Ninja. The only rides running consistently all day with at least two train operation were Tatsu, Twisted Colossus, West Coast Racers, and Gold Rusher. And surprisingly Lex Luthor, CraZanity, and all the flats were running fine too. Coasterbill hit the nail on the head. If you need to close during the week during the off season (especially considering their volume of coasters and rides to maintain compared to every other SoCal park), so be it. But open most (if not all) of your rides when you're open, and when you're charging an arm and a leg for admission and parking now. Six Flags was totally killing it through the pandemic the last couple years and we were all laughing at Cedar Fair, and it feels like the total opposite now.

Very interesting addition. I am always happy to see B&M expand their portfolio and innovate a little and produce something unique, so that is cool. The trains also looks *very* open. Like... more open than any other train I've seen. There are absolutely no sides whatsoever and you're essentially just "standing" on a platform. Very cool. Hopefully it's comfortable. My biggest problem with old stand-ups is the 4-across seating is just terrible for heartlining while standing up - those edge seats are always bad. So having it 2-across and a little "suspension" on the seat will be a good improvement. I am interested to see how the height adjustment works on top of the "bounciness." People already don't ride stand-up coasters properly, most just sit on the bicycle seat, so hopefully 24 years of innovation on the design will pay off. I think the biggest downfall with the addition is the height restriction. Yet another "adult" coaster. Cool for us but not cool for families. Hopefully their next addition is a proper low-restriction coaster or ride.

This is excellent news, and actually a little surprising (the writing has been on the wall for Carowinds for years). I guess with BGW year-round and putting in coaster after coaster, maybe Kings Dominion is waking up! Even if their headliners are down for maintenance and/or weather, the park being open with some rides is better than closed altogether.

Iron Gwazi on Saturday afternoon. My 35th ride on it!

An absolutely perfect addition to the park that desperately needs flat rides. Big win in my book! Can't wait to ride next year. Also - off topic - today is my 10 year anniversary of posting on TPR!

Despite all the jokes about this thing taking an absurd amount of time to actually open, this will be a very nice addition to the park. I'm very happy they added the turn table for 2-train ops and on those crazy hot summer days I'm sure it will still draw a massive line. So many parks could use a new modern water coaster like this. This would be perfect at Carowinds.

What's stumping me about this "renovation" is that Dragster's biggest problem was reliability. So whatever Cedar Point is doing to the ride... I imagine reliability and operational consistency is at the top of their mind. An LSM conversion would be cool, and still probably more reliable than hydraulic, but there's no saying that will suddenly make it a reliable coaster. In my opinion this is also what's ruling out some of those other crazy ideas like extending the height, adding a switch track with a spike, etc. I think Cedar Fair is very much going to "stay in the box" for this project rather than do some out-there idea, because that's what got them the original Dragster in the first place. This will be super interesting to follow...

^Ya know, if they lay RMC hybrid track but keep the layout identical, and do the necessary structural repairs, I certainly wouldn't mind that at all. Not sure how plausible that is though and if it's the same track gauge/rail size as the Intamin Pre-Fab track. I am in the "RMC it, but don't you dare touch the layout" camp!

I just wanted to pop in and say thank you to everyone who gave me advice a few weeks ago. I went to Knoebels last Sunday and absolutely LOVED the place. Everything else aside, Phoenix and Twister absolutely blew away all my expectations. Their operations are impressive enough but they both were just fantastic. Phoenix's airtime feels illegal and Twister brings lots of intensity and laterals that I was not expecting. I was a bit worried Phoenix would be the "Millennium Force of woodies" and would become overhyped after all these awards it wins but... yeah I totally get it. Also managed to get on Flying Turns and Impulse, both of which are about what I expected. And despite my slight dairy intolerance, I tried the BBQ pizza anyway and it was delicious and I have no regrets lol (and it was cheap?!). A large slice of pizza and a drink for 6.50 seemed dirt cheap. I didn't spend the entire day at the park but a good 5-6 hours and taking it all in, riding the coasters many times, and enjoying the atmosphere. Oh and the drop tower is also nuts. Black Diamond was closed so I unfortunately didn't do that. I didn't get around to the Haunted Mansion either because the line was just ridiculous and I wanted to get more re-rides on Phoenix and Twister to use up the ride tickets I bought. Overall though I had an amazing time. The park felt like a combination of Lagoon and Holiday World but better than both. I already can't wait to go back. I will also say, the drive from Knoebels directly to Dorney Park was quite... strange? So many back roads and through small, old colonial/Americana towns. Such a different feel than out west or in the south. That drive was one of the most memorable, surprising, but also strange parts of the trip. I've never really done any drive like that.

I completely agree. An indoor coaster like this would work very well at BGT or SWO. I am hoping the theming plays out well for DarKoaster. Outdoor coasters like Pantheon might be able to get away with a lack of theming but with indoor coasters, I feel like it is much more important, and much more obvious if it is lacking. Excited for this!

Talon at Dorney Park on Monday. One of my new favorite inverts!

Even if they did construct a spike, a swing launch would totally destroy the ride's capacity. It would greatly lengthen the ride and only one train would obviously be allowed on the swing at a time. Something I noticed is Cedar Fair's terminology. With Montezooma, they said it was undergoing "major refurbishment" which will actually turn out to be almost an entirely new ride. They didn't say Montezooma was "retiring" like they are here for TTD. I feel like if we are seeing some kind of LSM/new train/track makeover to TTD, they would word it in a similar way as a "refurbishment" rather than the ride retiring? I don't know? Obviously Knott's and Cedar Point are separate parks and could say it however they'd like but it's something to think about.

For what it's worth, I visited on Saturday 8/13 and it was dead. I think the extraordinary heat (104+) was partly to blame, and the water park looked slammed, but the dry park was a ghost town. Even X2 was a walk-on in the middle of the day. Wonder Woman had a very short indoor wait that barely extended past the lockers. Labor Day may be a little more crowded, but the forecast is also 108 degrees so it may surprise you how empty it is. This whole attendance drop thing is kinda true. I had to see it to believe it. With that being said, getting Flash Pass never makes your day worse. You will always ride more and can take your day more leisurely so it's always a good investment! At the very least you will save some time walking through the queue lines. We had it on our empty day and it still saved a little on Full Throttle, Colossus, and Tatsu. Enjoy!

I am visiting this park on Friday for the first time since July 2016. Generally speaking the reviews I read online regarding literally anything coaster or theme park related are more negative than what my experience turns out to be, but after what happened last week and what is happening with the chain in general, I am... prepared for the worst? I suppose. With that being said, I had a great time at SFMM a couple weeks ago. Hot as heck but the park was running great with basically everything open and little to complain about. But of course that doesn't mean this park is the same. Time will tell I guess. I remember it being a great park with decent operations and overall a really good time. But 6 years is a while.

I wonder if they will be replacing another section of track like they did earlier this year?

While I personally feel this coaster would've been a much nicer fit at Dorney Park, that's just the dorky coaster nerd in me who pays attention to "well-rounded lineups" and crap like that. I am still absolutely stoked that WOF is finally adding a coaster after 14 years. Cedar Fair finally threw one of their small parks a bone and I think that is something to be excited about for sure. These new coaster announcements are fun, it finally is starting to feel like pre-COVID now that most of the COVID-delayed rides are now open (looking at you Aquaman). I think Cedar Fair killed it with announcements this year and the fact that they made all of those announcements when Six Flags was presenting their Q2 earnings call is just.... kinda hilarious. Already looking at a WOF & SDC trip next year!

My thoughts exactly. I know why the park is doing this, I get it. Bringing life to something old that was in need of extensive refurbishment and marketing it with a storyline and theming. I get it. But I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm absolutely gutted. I'll hold all reservations until we know everything, but the switching launch directions and comfort collars/shoulder straps (and likely reduced capacity trains) tell me all I need to know that the true Montezooma is officially dead. This ride has more sentimental value to me than any other in the world. First looper, first big coaster, first launch. Onto bigger and better things I suppose. So happy I got my last rides (without knowing it'd close) in December.